Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth (2018)

I tried play the first Persona Q when I was messing around with the Citra emulator. I played the first 2 hours and then dropped it. It didn't seem like the dungeon crawling and cartography didn't blend too well on a computer and the gameplay wouldn't really appeal to me all too much. I also have to mention that I have never played an Etrian Odyssey game. Months later, I decided to get this game the day it came out cuz why not? I love Persona. This time I played PQ2 on the 3DS and playing it PQ on Citra was kind of a mistake.

This game is really solid Etrian Odyssey-like game and it doesn't feel like a ripoff despite both being from Atlus. On the 3DS, making the maps as you explore labyrinths felt really natural and as if I were making the maps and progressing throughout the game. Once you complete the map, you're like "Damn. I really did all of that?" I motivated myself to do almost every special screening, despite them being repetitive fetch quests or "kill this baddie", because there are some really important bonuses that will really help you out. The story is fun, cheesy, and adorable with a message about individualism where while I see where it is going, it can be too on on the nose a bunch of times. Also, have I mentioned this game is cute? The sort of chibi like designs, the new main character of the spinoff, Hikari, a certain character you come across in the third movie, and a lot of dialogue exchanges that made me chuckle are what made me "aww" at times. The characters from Personas 3, 3 Portable, 4, and 5 all meet each other and in concept, it can be very interesting what exchanges will occur between these 3 groups. In execution, the exchanges are handled decently. Some characters are dumbed down like Chie, Akihiko, and Morgana only have one running joke going for them and they can be grating. Also, Chie and Akihiko only mentioned meat and protein once in their mainline games so I don't why those gags happened in PQ1 and why they carry over in PQ2. There isn't as much stuff going on that makes the characters interact with each other aside from these special screenings. I wish there was something like the group date or the wedding scenes from PQ where the characters could have fun with each other. But I found some interactions to be hilarious such as the one where Yukiko wants to be an artist and Yusuke teaches her. That had me in stitches. The soundtrack is my favorite out of all the spinoffs. It is great.

Now for some criticisms. Like I've said, some characters are dumbed down to one joke, the message is as shoves itself down your throat and is mentioned every time you progress through the story. You have to walk on every tile to 100% a maze. Why can't it count when you highlight a tile you haven't stepped on? Doing this feels like a chore. 1 boss depends on RNG because of inflicting them with a certain ailment. Special screenings do get repetitive. Unison moves and follow ups appear very frequently during FOE and boss battles. During 2 FOE battles, I got 5 in each fight.

But for some of the criticisms, they can lead to some very useful stuff. So here's some tips. Complete every labyrinth as the golden chests can give you some useful stuff like infinite Goho-m's or special persona fusions. Search every nook and cranny for something to interact with in corners. Special screenings can increase your Persona stock and beating every Velvet Room attendant can give you everyone's ultimate Personas. They can also give you unison skills and despite them appearing often, they really do help and I recommend getting every single one. Be sure to poison the second boss as poison deals a boat load of damage.

To sum it up, I really like this game. It's one of my favorite 3DS games, it's my favorite Persona spinoff (Arena Ultimax being a close second) and I had fun with it. If you're a Persona fan, I'd say check this one out.

FINAL RATING: 8/10

Buying Persona Q2 felt like a risk. I'd avoided its predecessor due to its difficulty, and I've never played an Etrian Odyssey game. But I really loved Persona 5, I was disappointed to hear it wasn't coming to Switch, and I figured this might be a nice consolation prize.

The game does an impressive job of mimicking Persona 5's style, albeit more modestly given the 3DS hardware. The soundtrack in particular may be my new favorite of the series: I'm usually not a fan of remixes, but one or two here may improve on the originals.

I enjoyed mapping dungeons using the second screen. It seems silly at first, but it becomes second nature pretty quickly. And the battles themselves, while slightly different from Persona, eventually scratched a similar itch. This entry's difficulty settings make the experience as a whole very approachable.

The rhythm of dungeons versus everything else is quite a bit poorer than the mainline games. There just isn't enough variety to make the Shop, Velvet Room and Ticket Booth feel like anything more than menu navigation.

Where there is variety is in the wealth of characters from Personas 3 through 5, but this has pros and cons. On one hand, it's fun to see these characters interact and to arrange a party of your favorites. On the other hand, many of them embody similar archetypes, they never shut up, and ultimately I found myself neglecting the majority except for bonuses during certain sidequests.

In the end, Persona Q2 is like really good fanfiction: A skillfully crafted, consistently enjoyable way to revisit and mashup characters and concepts, but never an essential addition to the franchise it borrows from.